It has felt like that at times this year, as British low-cost and charter airline Monarch Airlines collapsed this month, following budget carrier Air Berlin’s bankruptcy filing in August. And that came after Italian flagship airline Alitalia went into bankruptcy in the spring, leaving it facing a sale.

Deutsche Lufthansa (ticker: LHA.Germany) has scored an upgrade to first class, so to speak, thanks in part to these flops by other carriers. Air Berlin’s unraveling is viewed as particularly helpful for Germany’s largest operator by traffic.

Yet a number of bulls say other factors actually will be bigger drivers. Several see Lufthansa’s stock price rising to 30 euros ($35.36) due to a range of tailwinds, implying a rally of about 20% from its recent price around €25.

Air Berlin’s downfall does provide upside, but only up to a point. Cologne-based Lufthansa has inked a €210 million agreement to take over a large part of the Berlin-based airline’s assets.

The deal “removes the risk of a new entrant disruptively running [Air Berlin] assets,” and it should also help firm up Lufthansa’s position as a go-to carrier, said a team of RBC analysts led by Damian Brewer in a recent note.

However, Lufthansa “will face likely distraction to clear regulatory hurdles and then in integrating these new operations,” Brewer and his colleagues say, adding that “little capacity effectively leaves the market, so the supply/demand backdrop is little changed.”

Their top reasons to buy Lufthansa include a key deal with pilots, the carrier’s reputation among flyers for Mercedes-Benz-like quality, and strong demand, thanks in large part to Germany’s buoyant economy. They have an Outperform rating on the stock and a price target of €30.

Lufthansa and its main pilots union signed a five-year agreement this month that ought to reduce costs and pension liabilities for the carrier. The pact was expected, but it’s another positive catalyst for the stock, said a team of Bernstein analysts led by Daniel Roeska in a recent note. They have lowered their year-end forecast for the carrier’s pension deficit to about €6 billion. They also have a target of €30 for the stock, which they upgraded this month to Outperform from Market Perform.

Even analysts who aren’t that bullish on Lufthansa offer a bit of praise for the big deal with pilots. The company’s pension deficit “will see some relief,” though it is “likely to remain a sizable overhang,” says a Morgan Stanley team led by Penelope Butcher that has a Neutral rating on the stock and a price target of €25.40.

Lufthansa’s valuation isn’t sky-high, even though shares have doubled this year, touching levels last seen in 2001. The stock trades at 6.3 times forward-year estimated earnings, above Air France-KLM’s (AF.France) 5.6 multiple, but below British Airways parent International Consolidated Airlines Group’s (UK:IAG) 7.4 and the U.S. Global Jets exchange-traded fund’s (JETS) 11.7. (About 85% of the ETF’s holdings are airline stocks, including Lufthansa.)

GERMANY’S FLAGSHIP AIRLINE still faces some challenges in the long run, but the Air Berlin developments have helped buy it time, according to the Bernstein analysts. The German market looks set to see more competition from Irish discount carrier Ryanair Holdings (RY4C.Ireland) and others, and fundamental issues will need to be revisited with the pilots union by 2022, they warn.

The medium-term outlook is “more muted,” with profit margins appearing on track to decline in the 2019 fiscal year, the Bernstein team says. Nonetheless, they “see the stars aligning over Germany for the immediate future.”

Lufthansa is among the carriers that have submitted bids for portions of the bankrupt Alitalia. Ryanair—another poster child for the European airline sector’s recent woes—also was moving toward making an offer, then backed away and signaled it wanted to focus on its cancellations crisis.

In any case, the potential sale of Alitalia has been postponed by the Italian government, pushed back from November to April. That aside, investors might not want to bank on the type of consolidation that has helped U.S. carriers boost their profits.

“The recent demise of Alitalia, Air Berlin, and Monarch have rekindled hopes that the European airline sector may, finally, be en route to more consolidation, providing better margins for investors,” the Bernstein team writes. “Sadly, we don’t think this is the case yet. The current market exits remove—at most—1.5% of total market capacity in 2018 and hardly make any dent in the longer-term growth rates.”

The bottom line: Lufthansa’s stock is worth a look, but not simply because the skies are less crowded.

IN EUROPEAN MARKETS last week, the main benchmarks mostly lost ground, with Spain’s IBEX gauge among the biggest decliners as tensions over Catalonia’s independence push flared up again.

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